Great numbers of these small creatures reside within the bowels and innards of the mighty Hive Ships. They skitter throughout, responding to foreign intrusions and disposing of dead flesh, much like white blood cells in human blood. Once found, swarms of these Spiderlings spray a highly concentrated acidic liquid, rendering the blemish down to a slush in very short order. This is then sucked up via the proboscis found on its head, and stored in the sac underneath the thorax. The Spiderling then disposes of this slush in the filtration organs located deep within the Hive Ship. Thus the inner workings of the biological vessel are kept clean.

Hydra is entering!? i might as well throw the towel in; there is no way i could compete with his stuff...

*takes Catharsix aside and whispers to him* i say we get together and render him down into biomass...

My lictors are waiting

This will surely be a close run to get it done. I foresee a night of heavy painting and sweating (close to ubearable hot in germany right now).

You're *PAINTING* it too!? Aw heck. I *might* be able to compete on the basis of ideas, and my modelling isn't terrible, but I certainly can't compete with your painting skill. And certainly not in the next 24 hours...

one of my fastest made models, took me about 5 hours form building to painting. i am still not sure what to do about a base. i think i will build a little diorama showing him in action.

fluff:

+++ Extract from the report of Death Watch Sergant Manuel Dominiqus after the exploration of a half dead hiveship +++

.....during our exploration in the badly damaged, or in this case badly wounded, left flank of the hiveship we entered a tunnellike structure. There we encountered a strange new type of organism, as far as i know there is no report about a sighting of this genotype. The organism showed all typical features that are associated with tyranids, the most prominent bodypart being an enormous chitinous head with a beaklike jaw. With this jaw it cut through damaged bony structures, veinlike pipes and hard chitinous parts of the hiveship. The muscles in the jaw and the chitin must be of the strongest and hardest kind ever encountered so far, as it easily cut through material that we couldn´t damage with our holy bolters. The beast seemed unaware of us, we couldn´t make out anything like eyes, it seems that the organism is blind and totally dependet on synapsecontrol. As we shot it to bring back a specimen, it turned on us and attacked, it was slow and not reacting as fast as nids normally do, maybe the link to the hivemind was not working properly, but we could not kill it. It bit through the ceramitarmour of brothermarine daniell´s leg and seperated it easily. Imagine what a brood of these beast could do if they entered an imperialship... We had to draw back as more of these creatures entered the fightingground. As we have been forced to retreat there is only vid-data for you to further examine the creature. we leave it to you to specify the origins of the creature, beeing a new organism or just an mutation of an existing one does not change the fact the we already have a name for it. After loosing his leg brothermarine daniell called the beast cutterbug and we kept that name, he will get a bionic replacement soon. We speculated about the function of the cutterbugs, we have one theory that seems most likely to us. As it worked in the damaged parts of the hiveship we think its some kind of repair organism. Cutting of parts that are to badly damaged to be "healed" by the hiveship itself. It is even possible that this process involves a reduction of pain suffered by the ship (if it knows pain any at all). How the reconstruction of these parts is accomplished is unknown to us. An other function of the cutterbugs could be in reconstructing in a growing hiveship. As we know that those ships can grow it is possible that in some stages it could be necessary to rebuilt some internal constructs to allow further growth. But all of this is mere speculation.

_________________"I know you may find the Tyranids physically repellent to look at but believe you me, you don't want to let them out of your sight." Hojan Storall Technomagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus

Victuallers have a vital function in terrestrial tyranid forces should the consumption of the prey planet prove difficult. As we well know the hive fleet prefers prey planets that provide little resistance. But should the local forces hold the tyranids at bay the tyranid ground forces will need resupply. Most tyranids that soldiers face on the battlefield have a very simplistic digestive system. (This is incredibly robust and accounts for a large part of the resiliency of smaller tyranids.) But while enough to keep the battlefield tyranids supplied with all the energy they need, it is deeply inefficient. So the victualler will absorb some of the slurry in digestion pools and pre digest it to create a vitamin and energy rich food source for other tyranids.

This allows more biomass to be kept for the hive ships, or in a worst case scenario, to allow a small enclave of tyranids to continue the fight when cut of from other forces and ready food supplies.

_________________"I know you may find the Tyranids physically repellent to look at but believe you me, you don't want to let them out of your sight." Hojan Storall Technomagos of the Adeptus Mechanicus

Harald, I like yours as well. Another great inspiration for where to use those claws. Are these the old ooe claws?

Yale, I just think yours is brilliant. The mouth is nice and low, thje perfect spot toeat up sludge from a digestion pool, and the look on it's face is perfect for someone who just had a shot of digestion pool sludge. What did you make it from?

Despite the obviously not-nid-originated face, I still think it doesn't even clash too much with the rest of your swarm, and fits in rather well.

The Tyrannicus Exemplum Annexus made its first appearance during the fights for Galamathar VI, though it is highly douptfull that imperial intelligence ever actually "saw" this creature. The Hive Mind of Hive Fleet Hydra originally created this specimen for fast information transfer to the Nornqueens. These informations are of biological origin. DNA and memory of fallen enemies are broadcasted via synapse to the hive ships.This seems to skip the normal progress of harvesting the biomass, but enables the Fleet and the Nornqueen to react faster to possible threats and use the DNA of their enemies for their advantage.

In the battle for Galamthar VI this specimen gained a new name. The Members of the wide spread Genestealer Cults embraced their apperance and named the "Ambassadors". Members that carried important strategic informations were brought forth, for the Ambassadors to embrace their knowlegde and direct it to the fleet.

This unique interaction between Cults and Tyranids seems to be an reaction to the "burned earth" policy the Imperial Guard is fighting the Tyrannic Invasions with. The Tyranids have learned that infiltration and disorder can be more efficent than a full assault and that exisiting Cults often are faster successfull in their task than the mathematical possibility that a single Genestealer is successfull.

Man, that's nice Hydra! Everyone's looks very good. Its gonna be tough to decide! Although I couldn't enter, I had written my fluff. I'll post it and maybe somebody would maybe make it, if they feel like it.

Tyranid BalltreThe Hive fleet’s success lies in the creation of tyranids. Broodmothers spawn them, but sometimes what they spawn isn’t what they thought it was. They sometimes create a tyranid that does not cope with the Hive Mind, and goes awry. Seeing as the Hive Mind has no control over some of those creatures, they are free to roam around the Hive Fleet ship, with nothing to stop it. That is the purpose of a Tyranid Balltre. A Balltre is very similar to a bat, thus the term being the Norwegian word for bat. All its life it sleeps. Whenever a “mishap” happens, they are alerted and dispatched to hunt the mistake down and eat it, and then go back to their dormant state. The Balltre always stays in the Hive Fleet ship until the Hive Fleet ship dies. Occasionally, Balltre are sent down to a planet to assist in the cleansing of bodies after an invasion is complete. Balltre are never sent in groups to track down deadly created errors. They spread out so as to not alert the lurking creature and to find it quicker. They cannot be found in Imperial records because they have never been seen by any live humans. They are very important because, although they do not fight, they help the community of the Hive Fleet survive. Whenever they capture something they consume it. When they go back to their resting place, a digestion hole waits. They put their rear on the digestion hole and they release whatever they consumed, which becomes biomass.I made the Balltre with some carnifex bitz. It is about the same length of one. They can be used as harpies in games, as they do fly. Hope you liked the fluff! Sorry for no pictures!

_________________Splinter Fleet Pallas-Our job is to bring fear to the enemy, and we do it well.